


all i am is parts of me

by thompsborn



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Manipulation, F/F, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Manipulation, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Tony Stark Coparenting Peter Parker, Maybe - Freeform, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, We'll see I guess, and bad shit happens when fear based parenting takes place, and has some setbacks, and it's more like MAGIC manipulation, but dont worry, but fear base parenting isn't ideal, by the bad guy!, dont worry about it, it'll be ok, may is not a bad parent!, probably, shhh dont worry dont worry about it, the peter loses his powers fic that i've been teasing for 86 years, with some bumps in the road
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:22:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29296581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thompsborn/pseuds/thompsborn
Summary: “Do I know you?”“No,” they answer, quick and simple. “And you aren’t going to. I am not here for acquaintanceship, nor am I here for myself. I am here, Spider-Man, to provide help for your dilemmas.”“Pretty sure I don’t have any dilemmas,” Peter slowly responds, making show of patting himself down and looking over his shoulder. “No big baddies behind me, no stab wounds, unless I’m somehow totally missing something that’s staring me right in the eyes. No dilemmas for Spidey tonight.”The figure chuckles, just a bit. It feels like the sound rumbles the earth. “I suppose I should clarify.” They hover a fraction closer, and then they step onto the rooftop. Peter, once again, steps back. “I am not speaking of a Spider-Man dilemma. I am speaking of you—the boy beneath the mask. I believe your name is…” they trail off, and then, from within the shadows of the hood, their eyes begin to glint red, staring directly into Peter’s and seemingly locking him into place. The smile is audible, even if it isn’t visible, as the figure goes on to finish with, “…Peter Parker. Am I correct?”-or: my 'peter loses his powers' fic
Relationships: Harley Keener & Peter Parker, Harley Keener/Peter Parker, Harry Osborn & Peter Parker, Harry Osborn/Flash Thompson, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Michelle Jones & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones/Gwen Stacy, More to be added - Relationship, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Flash Thompson, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 12
Kudos: 43





	1. who i am isn't good enough

**Author's Note:**

> hewwo
> 
> so, this was gonna be a one shot, but i decided that: no <3  
> the ten chapters is an estimate, as usual - i'm guessing the fic will be about 50k words, so i split it into approximately 5k words per chapter, but chapter count can differ greatly with me, so we'll see what happens! don't be surprised if it changes lmao
> 
> also, i know some characters in this fic may look like they're being painted in a bad light or something, but i promise every single character in this fic (excluding the actual bad guys) are characters that i fucking love. none of this is character bashing - it's genuinely good people having flaws and not handling every situation perfectly and not understanding everything as well as they think they do. people can be flawed without being bad.

Over the course of the school day, Harley looks at him twice.

“Dude, what did you _do?”_ Ned asks, features scrunched up in confused concern. “He’s acting like you kicked his puppy, or something. I tried asking him what was up in third period, but he just said it wasn’t important and changed the subject. I mean, did something happen between you two?”

Peter gnaws on his lower lip, switches his books out for his next class with muscle memory as he wracks his brain for an explanation. “I don’t know,” he says after a moment, letting out his breath with a heavy sigh. “I can’t—I don’t think I did anything? There’s nothing that comes to mind, and we didn’t get into a fight or anything like that, so… I don’t know. I really have no clue and it’s kind of freaking me out.”

Ned lets out a little hum, looking over his shoulder, towards where Harley is switching out his own books down the hall. For a moment, Peter follows his eyes, gazes at his boyfriend with worry. Harley seems to feel their gazes, as he looks over a second later, meets Peter’s eyes and freezes. Peter maintains the eye contact and tries to communicate with his features, repeatedly begs _talk to me, talk to me, talk to me, talk to me,_ in his head and hopes it translates in the way his brows pull up into a pleading sort of expression. Harley just looks at him, clenching and unclenching his jaw, before shaking his head once, the action curt and firm, and turning away with a glare, shutting his locker with a little more force than necessary. Peter feels his heart sink, just a bit, as he watches Harley shoulder his bag and walk away, disappearing around the corner. Ned stares after him, too, before turning back to Peter, eyes a little wide. “He seems really upset,” he says, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, the action almost anxious. “Like…”

“Like he’s pissed at me,” Peter finishes, tone a bit bland.

Ned nods. “Yeah. Like he’s pissed at you.”

Peter lets out another sigh, closing his eyes. “What do I do?”

“Talk to him?” Ned suggests. “If he even lets you close enough to him to talk.”

Peter shuts his locker and leans his forehead against it, both trying to come up with a plan to handle this while also mentally preparing for his last class of the day, feeling exhausted to his bones. His hip aches a bit, the bone already mended from the night before but the area still a little sore. “Fuck,” he says.

Ned pats him gently on the shoulder. “You’ll live, man. You always do.”

It’s not exactly comforting, but it’s enough to push Peter forward, guiding him through the last hour of school with his focus half on the class and half wandering around in his head. He makes a list of anything he could have done to make Harley upset with him, but nothing he thinks of seems bad enough to warrant this kind of behavior. Sure, Harley sometimes has bad days—everyone does, after all—and sometimes he just doesn’t feel like talking to anyone, Peter included, but this is different from that. Harley is specifically giving Peter the cold shoulder, spent all of lunch chatting normally with Ned and MJ, only to go silent and broody whenever Peter jumped in to the conversation. He can’t pretend it doesn’t hurt, especially after them being together for over a year now and never having a big fight or conflict that they couldn’t sit down and talk through with as little miscommunication as possible. Whatever it is that’s causing Harley to be so upset with him has to be something pretty big to have him acting like this.

Halfway through the class, when Peter is a bit too far in his thoughts to see the board at the front of the room, MJ kicks him in the ankle three times, until he finally blinks and looks over to her. “Pay attention, dork,” she tells him quietly, gesturing with her pen towards where the teacher is getting ready for a page or two of notes that the students are expected to copy down. Even softer, she says, “You two will be fine,” and offers him a little smile that tells him she knows exactly what he’s thinking about.

He returns the smile, albeit half heartedly, and flips open his notebook, opting to cast away his worries for the time being and put all of his focus on ending the school day with him being on top of his work.

After the bell rings, he shoves his stuff into his bag as quickly and efficiently as possible, zipping it up in a rush and tossing it over his shoulder with ease. MJ gives him a quick wave as he passes her, which he makes sure to return before leaving the classroom, instincts taking over to lead him down the hall and out the side exit, which Harley always takes to avoid the crowd of students all rushing through the front entrance at the same time. When he gets there, he sees the familiar blond waves and loose ringlets about to round the corner ahead, and he picks up his pace, calling out, “Harley!” to get his attention.

Harley freezes, looks over his shoulder at Peter with narrowed eyes. There’s a mixture of anger and hurt swirling in his blue iris’s, and Peter almost falters at the intensity of it, before quickly moving forward to close the space between them, stopping about two feet away. Harley lets out a long, slow breath, and slowly turns around to face Peter fully. His tone comes out flat and deadpan when he asks, “What?”

“I just—” Peter stops, nervously shuffles his feet and shakes his head slightly to clear his mind. “You’re, like—like, you’re clearly upset with me about something and I don’t know what I did wrong and—and I wanna fix whatever it is because it clearly has to be something important but I don’t—I don’t know—”

“You don’t know?” Harley repeats, sounding a bit incredulous. “You seriously don’t know?”

Peter pauses, sinks his teeth into his lower lip, and shakes his head again. “What did I do?”

For a long moment, Harley just stares at him, looking bewildered, before he barks out a laugh, the sound bitter and sharp in a way that his usually chiming laughter isn’t supposed to be. “Of course,” he murmurs, humorless chuckles spilling out with his words. “Of course you don’t fucking—why am I so surprised?” The way he says it is almost resigned, like he’s given up, but Peter doesn’t even know what he’s giving up on and it’s making his heart race fearfully in his chest.

“Harley—”

“We spent two weeks planning that date,” Harley tells him, not bothering to listen to what Peter was going to say. It’s probably for the best, considering that even Peter isn’t sure where he was going with that. “Two weeks, okay? We put so much into that plan, and—and I was _so excited._ I got ready early and everything, just ‘cause I was excited to spend some time with you. ‘Cause dates are kind of rare for us, with our internships and decathlon and everything else that we do, and—and—and you never even show up. You didn’t even call, or—or text me, or—or—or _anything._ I waited for you for three hours, Peter!”

Peter takes a slight step back, his eyes going wide as he thinks of what day it is, tries to remember that it’s—today is Friday, and their date—god, they had it planned for Thursday—for yesterday—

Fuck, he feels like an asshole.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, tries to convey just how badly he feels in his tone. “I didn’t—I swear I didn’t mean to stand you up, I was just—I’ve been so focused on trying to track down that rogue scientist from Oscorp all week while trying not to get behind on homework and I lost track of the days and the—and the dates, and I just—I didn’t even realize what day it was yesterday. Shit, Harley, I’m—I’m so sorry.”

Harley huffs out half of a sarcastic laugh. “You’re always sorry, Peter. But you keep doing it.”

Peter takes a tentative step forward, eyes pleading. “I know, I—I’m trying not to, I promise, but I can’t just ignore my responsibility as Spider-Man. I’m… I’m working on it. I’m trying.”

“I’m not—” Harley stops, scrubs a hand over his features and—god, Peter’s heart aches—and sniffles, looking away with a shine over his eyes. “I’m not trying to make you choose between me and Spidey, okay? I wouldn’t—I’m not doing that. I just… is it so wrong for me to wish we could be normal teenagers that go on normal dates? Is it wrong that I—I don’t even know what I want. Just...”

And Peter takes a step back again. The shifting weight makes his hip ache, just a little bit. “Harley…”

Harley frowns down at the toes of his shoes. “It’s whatever,” he says, even though his features look like they’re crumpling in on him, like a roof caving in on itself. “I just… I don’t know. I think I’m starting to get a little tired of—of all of this, you know? Of how hard it is.”

“Tired?” Peter repeats, a little bit breathless. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” Harley says, shaking his head. “I really don’t, Peter. I just—I want to date you, and be with you, you know? But I can’t—I don’t know if I can—I think Spider-Man might be starting to be too much for me. And I would never ask you to give that up for me, but I still just—I just think that it would be easier, and maybe… maybe I’m not equipped for dating a teenage superhero.”

Peter thinks, for a moment, that those words feel like a physical blow to his already weakened chest, sucking the air out of his lungs so suddenly that it aches within him. “Are you…?”

Harley doesn’t look in Peter’s general direction. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I…” Peter trails off, tries to grapple for words while he swallows around the lump in his throat. He wants to say that he gets it, that none of this has been fair to Harley and he’s honestly surprised they lasted this long, that he just wants Harley to be happy and if that doesn’t include himself then that’s just how it is and he doesn’t want to hold Harley back. He wants to say so much, but all he says is, “Okay.”

An odd look twists up Harley’s features, like he’s taken a bite of a particularly sour lemon. “Okay? That’s it? I’m talking about potentially ending a fifteen month relationship and all you say is okay?”

The lump in Peter’s throat feels like it’s made of acid. “If it’s what you want, then I’m not going to try and stop you. Even if it—” _hurts, it hurts, god, it hurts_. “…I respect your decisions. I kind of—I don’t know. I kind of never expected you to like me in the first place, so the fact that you don’t want… me, or whatever, that’s—I kind of thought that this would happen a lot sooner than it is, honestly. If anything, I’m just… I’m really grateful that you gave me any of your time at all. And I’m sorry I let you down.”

It looks like there’s something else that Harley wants to say, flickers of something upset yet something sympathetic flashing through his eyes. “I’ll think about it,” is all he offers.

“Okay,” Peter says again. “I, um… Can you tell Mr. Stark that I don’t really feel up to lab day?”

Harley looks at Peter for a long moment, then ducks his head in a nod. “Yeah,” he says. “Sure.” And then, with a short pause, he spins around on his heel and marches away.

Peter stares after him long after he’s disappeared around the corner. He keeps staring, standing frozen in the little alley next to the school, unable to form a coherent thought outside of the steady repetition of _ow, ow, ow_ that comes with every increasingly unsteady breath. It isn’t until what could be five or fifty minutes later, when the door leading into the school is pushed open and Flash steps out, his phone pressed to his ear. Peter hears him, but doesn’t really process that he’s there, doesn’t look as Flash freezes, goes wide in the eyes and looks over his shoulder, like he’s contemplating going back inside, before he murmurs something into his phone and makes his way forward, stopping in front of Peter with a frown.

“Are you okay?” Flash asks, sounding unsure of himself when he asks it.

Peter blinks at him, kind of dazed. “Harley is probably gonna break up with me.”

Flash falters, brows twitching up towards his hairline in shock. For a moment, he looks away from Peter, gnaws a bit on his lower lip, and then lets out a sigh, bringing his phone back up to his ear and saying, “I think we’re gonna have to reschedule.” Then, to Peter: “Do you want ice cream?”

He stares down at the plastic bowl of ice cream with a churning stomach, idly using his spoon to stir it a bit as he tries to wrap his mind around the mess that his life currently is.

“So, it’s because of Spidey?” Harry asks, taking a bite of his mint chocolate chip ice cream.

Flash, from where he’s slouched in his seat, grumbles, “I still can’t believe that _Parker_ is _Spider-Man.”_

Harry flicks him in the nose. “Get over it. We’re being good friends right now.”

“Gross,” Flash says. Harry glares at him until he lets out a heavy sigh and sits upright in his seat. “Fine. _Fine._ I’m a good friend. I can be a good friend. Do I need to break Keener’s nose?”

Without really meaning to, Peter lets out a snort, looking at Flash incredulously. “Um, no.”

“I mean, I kinda want to,” Harry admits, quirking a brow. “He’s being an asshole.”

“No, he’s not,” Peter says, shaking his head. “He has every right to be upset and to not want to deal with the stress of what I do. It’s not fair to put him through all of that. He’s allowed to want someone normal.”

“But there are better ways to say that without making it feel like you’re doing something wrong.”

Peter shifts in his seat, frowning. “I don’t feel like that.”

Flash scoffs. “You feel like you’re doing something wrong when you breathe differently.”

“That’s an exaggeration,” Peter says, “and I don’t appreciate it.”

“The point is,” Harry interrupts, “I think the way he’s saying it is putting blame on you that you don’t deserve. Yeah, if he wants something different, then that’s his choice and everyone should respect that, but he should not make it sound like it’s your fault that he wants something else.”

“I mean…” Peter trails off, playing with his ice cream absentmindedly. “Isn’t it, though?”

Harry looks at Peter with a deadpan look. “No, it isn’t.”

Peter takes a bite of his ice cream, forces it down. “But it’s my fault that I forgot about our date.”

“No, it’s the fault of things that are out of your control,” Harry says, pointing his spoon at Peter in a sort of definitive way. “You never asked to be Spider-Man, and it’s not your fault that being Spider-Man comes with so many things happening all of the time. Harley knows that. He wouldn’t have been cool with dating you for over a year if he didn’t know that. He’s just, for some reason—maybe he doesn’t realize he’s even doing it, but—he’s making it sound like it’s your fault when it isn’t. And that’s not fair.”

“Well,” Peter says, “I’ve kind of learned that nothing is ever fair and I’ll always get the short end of the stick, so… nothing new there. Plus, I literally chose to be Spider-Man. Like, that’s definitely on me.”

Rolling his eyes, Harry asks, “Did you ask that spider to bite you, Peter?”

He shifts in his seat. “Well, no, but—”

“Did you specifically go out in search of reasons to become a superhero?”

Peter glares at Harry, who looks all too smug. _“No._ But, Har, I—”

Harry holds up a single finger, brows raised. “Did a radioactive spider bite you without your consent, giving you powers that you didn’t ask for or want, before a series of events practically manipulated you into feeling responsible for saving people despite you being a literal fourteen year old at the time?”

“I wouldn’t call it manipulation, it’s not like there was someone trying to—”

“The world manipulated you,” Harry cuts in, features, suddenly, showing no more bullshit. Flash murmurs a soft _oh, shit,_ at the stern tone to Harry’s words, glances between Peter and Harry with an almost nervous look in his eyes. Peter huffs and looks away. Harry isn’t having any of that, doesn’t hesitate to snap, “Look at me, Parker.” There’s a certain edge to his voice that makes Peter comply without even realizing it, and then they’re locking gazes and Harry is telling him, “You’re not to blame, okay? I’ve known you since we were literally in diapers, so don’t act like I can’t tell what you’re thinking, and I’m not going to—I _refuse_ to sit here and let you paint a fucking target on your own back, as if you’re the bad guy when you’re not. I’m done with that shit. So I’m going to talk, and you’re actually going to listen to me for once in your life, and then we’re going to hug it out. Alright?”

Peter tries to maintain his glare, but that last sentence makes it hard not to smile, just a bit. “Fine.”

Harry doesn’t look away, doesn’t react to the slight twitch of Peter’s lips. All he does is maintain eye contact, keep his cool composure, and say, “You’re _good,_ Peter. You’re a genuinely good person, and it’s hard to sit here and let you act like you’re some piece of shit when you aren’t. Pete, you’re—I would kill to have _half_ the amount of heart that you do. I’m so jealous of you sometimes, it’s insane, and—”

“I’m going on patrol,” Peter interrupts, dropping his spoon into his ice cream and getting to his feet.

Harry blanches “What? Pete—”

Peter grabs his backpack and walks away.

It’s a Friday, which means his curfew is later than usual. Which means he loses track of time because he knows he can be out later, and he doesn’t realize just how late it is until Karen notifies him that May is calling, and Peter is too busy trying to dodge a bullet to offer a greeting. Not that he gets a chance to, of course, because May is immediately demanding, “Where are you, Peter?”

“Uh—” Peter swings around a lamp post, uses the momentum to kick one of the gunmen to the ground and web their hands to the concrete. “Couple blocks from Delmar’s, actually. Why?”

“It’s after one in the morning, Peter,” May says, and she sounds—almost hysterical, which is… definitely odd. She worries, yes, but she’s—she’s _May._ She’s always understood, ever since she found out about him being Spidey, and while she’s strict about curfew on school nights, she’s usually more lenient on weekends. She’ll call, remind him of the time, and then wait for him to get home, but she’s never yelled at him, never raised her voice like she does now, exclaiming, “There are rules for a reason!”

Peter is so shocked by her shouting that he misses his next swing, rolls against the ground and just barely manages to get back to his feet in time to dodge a punch thrown at his temple. “I—I know there are rules, May, I just—it’s Friday, and I got—caught up, and—and—”

There’s a choked off sound that cuts him off. “No. No excuses, Peter. You need to be home in ten minutes. Every minute that you’re late is a week that you’ll be grounded, understood?”

He just—doesn’t get it, feels overwhelmed by how weird this is. “What? But, May—”

“No but’s, Peter!” May interrupts. “Ten minutes. No exceptions.”

With that, she hangs up the phone. Peter feels shellshocked, frozen, only remembers that he needs to be moving when a bullet grazes his arm and the sting snaps him back into the present.

Ten minutes. Okay. Sure. He can do that.

Not a problem.

Correction: it’s a pretty big problem.

It takes twenty minutes to finish taking down the gunmen, which, usually, if he were to show up late and explain that to May, she’d just smile and tell him that it’s alright, that she understands, but with how she was acting on the phone, he has a feeling that it won’t fly like it normally does. Wanting to avoid upsetting her as much as possible, he tries to race home as soon as he’s able to, only to stop four times because of scrimmages in alleyways and muggers on street corners.

By the time he finally makes it home, it’s been nearly an hour.

Peter has never seen anger the way that he does when May levels him with a red rimmed glare. Despite feeling like his heart is hammering out of his chest, he sits there and lets her yell, wonders what it is that must have happened to set her off like this, because he has never— _never_ —seen her so mad.

Once she’s done and his bedroom door has been slammed shut, Peter slips his mask back on and sneaks out of his window silently. Not like he’s gonna be able to sleep, anyway.

There’s more muggers, more alleyway fights that he has to break up, cats stuck in trees and dogs that need to find their way back home. He spends hours doing all these tasks on autopilot, doesn’t check the time, isn’t really fully aware of all that he’s doing—doesn’t seem to really center back into his own mind, his own body, until he’s sitting on a roof top, waiting for Karen to alert him to anything else happening nearby, and he sees, in the distance, a sudden flash of bright red light.

It’s gone as soon as it appears. Peter stares at where it had been, everything else—Harley, his talk with Harry and Flash, the unexplained shouting from May—fading, suddenly, into the background. “Karen? Did you see that?”

“I did,” Karen responds instantly, sounding almost as frazzled as Peter feels. “My scanners aren’t detecting anything abnormal, but it looked like some sort of explosion. Proceed with caution.”

Peter gets to his feet slowly, confused. There’s another flash—a couple blocks closer, actually. “K?”

Karen sounds stressed when she repeats, “My scanners are not detecting anything abnormal.”

“But it’s—it’s there, right? I’m not going crazy?”

Before Karen can respond—though, he’s not entirely sure what her response would have been—there’s another flash of red light that’s much, much closer, only a couple alleyways over. He stumbles back, confused and, admittedly, a little scared, before steeling his nerves and stepping up to the ledge of the roof, his Spidey sense screaming alarm bells that ricochet in his skull. He’s about to jump, about to go over to where the last red flash was, but then there’s another, final flash of red—rising from the alley in front of him, though it doesn’t appear and disappear—instead, it stays, it hums with power as an odd looking figure, cloaked in strange black robes and a hood shadowing most of their face.

“Uh—” Peter takes a step back as the cloaked figure hovers eye level with him. “What the hell?”

The figure tilts their head curiously. “Spider-Man,” they greet, voice just as weird as their appearance, a deep rasp that seems too quiet to hear, only audible because of how the wind carries it to Peter’s ears.

Peter takes a second, much smaller step back. “Do I know you?”

“No,” they answer, quick and simple. “And you aren’t going to. I am not here for acquaintanceship, nor am I here for myself. I am here, Spider-Man, to provide help for your dilemmas.”

“Pretty sure I don’t have any dilemmas,” Peter slowly responds, making show of patting himself down and looking over his shoulder. “No big baddies behind me, no stab wounds, unless I’m somehow totally missing something that’s staring me right in the eyes. No dilemmas for Spidey tonight.”

The figure chuckles, just a bit. It feels like the sound rumbles the earth. “I suppose I should clarify.” They hover a fraction closer, and then they step onto the rooftop. Peter, once again, steps back. “I am not speaking of a Spider-Man dilemma. I am speaking of you—the boy beneath the mask. I believe your name is…” they trail off, and then, from within the shadows of the hood, their eyes begin to glint red, staring directly into Peter’s and seemingly locking him into place. The smile is audible, even if it isn’t visible, as the figure goes on to finish with, “…Peter Parker. Am I correct?”

Usually, any guess towards his identity would be met with some sort of quip, a deflection that doesn’t answer the question at all, usually leaves whoever was trying to figure out the mystery confused and unsure about what, exactly, just happened. This isn’t a usual situation, though. He can’t place what it is, but he feels frozen, unable to move, to blink, to look away from the red eyes that are staring him down.

“I expect an answer if you are to receive my help. Are you Peter Parker?”

Peter swallows drily, throat, suddenly, like sandpaper. He feels like he’s in a trance. “Yeah.”

A pleased hum comes from within the shadowed feature. Their eyes only seem to glow brighter. “Very good. Now, I am going to ask you a question, and you are going to answer—and only when you answer it honestly will I offer the solution you need. Do you understand, Peter Parker?”

“I understand,” Peter murmurs, almost swaying in place. Faintly, he registers that Karen is talking to him. He doesn’t really hear anything that she’s trying to say.

The figure takes a step closer. Peter doesn’t step back this time. “What do you want?”

Peter blinks, slow and sluggish. “I… I don’t—what do you mean?”

“What,” the figure repeats, “do you want?”

What does he want? Peter doesn’t have the slightest clue what he wants—it’s never about what he wants, anyway. It’s about making sure everyone else get what they want. But, apparently, there’s a right answer to this, and Peter can’t even begin to understand what it might be. “I—I don’t know. Nothing, I think.”

They tsk, tilting their head to the side. “Think about your day, Peter. What do you want?”

He thinks back—remembers the conflict with Harley, their argument and the fact that he might end up being broken up with; remembers the talk with Harry, the flash of incredulous anger that churned in the pit of his stomach when Harry had uttered the word jealous, as if there’s anything in Peter’s life worth being jealous of; remembers the hysterical rage in May’s eyes as she yelled at him in a way that she never has before, not even when he’s disobeyed her rules or lashed out at her in dumb teenage angst. He even thinks of the homework he’s behind on and the test that came back with a D because he’d been half awake when he took it, the swell of—of embarrassment that came with seeing the low score.

_What do you want? What do you want? What do you want?_

“I…” Peter wets his lips, feels his brows furrow. “I want… I want to do better.”

The figure does not move. “What do you want?”

Wrong answer, then. Peter tries again. “I want Harley to not break up with me.” The question is only repeated, and Peter frowns. “I want—I want May to not be mad at me?”

“What do you want?”

“I—” Peter sucks in a sharp breath, racks his brain—thinks ever further. “I want Uncle Ben back. I want my parents back. I want, uh… I want to stop having nightmares. I want—I don’t know what I wan!”

The figure steps even closer. “Think, Peter Parker. Think very hard.”

He thinks. He thinks, he thinks, he thinks—until it’s like his brain is unable to form a coherent thought, until it’s just a jumble of words and—and there’s something tugging at his mind, almost supplying the words for him, though that doesn’t make them any less truthful as he says, “I wish I wasn’t Spider-Man.”

“Ah.” The figure seems finally content in his response, bowing their head in some kind of nod. A hand emerges from the robes—in it, a vial of something dark blue. “Drink this, and you won’t be anymore.”

Something within Peter screams, tries to tell him that this isn’t really what he wants—this isn’t a solution to his problems—but there’s a whispering in his head, feeding into his frustration and his hurt and making him want this more than he has ever wanted anything before. He doesn’t even register that he’s moving, that he’s doing anything, until the vial is in one hand, mask in the other, and he’s bringing it to—

“Peter!”

He pauses, eyes still not leaving the red ones staring at him, but brain recognizing that voice. Vial poised in the air, only a few inches from his lips, he unsurely calls out, “Mister Stark?”

There’s no physical way for him to move his eyes, no way to look away. He is still entranced, even as he hears the sound of metal boots hitting the rooftop, even as he can sense the presence of Tony less than ten feet away. It sounds like he tries to approach, but another arm emerges from the robes, fingers glowing a vague red as the figure holds their hand out and, suddenly, Tony stops approaching, lets out a strangled noise of frustration before snarling, “What the hell are you doing, asshole? Why can’t I move?”

The figure does not look at Tony, does not respond to Tony. Instead, they continue to stare into Peter’s eyes and say, “Drink it, Peter Parker. It is the solution you desire. You said so yourself, did you not? Mere minutes ago—you wish to not be Spider-Man anymore. Drink, and you will have your wish.”

“Wh—?” Tony splutters, sounding frantic. “Pete, don’t— _don’t_ listen to this guy, alright? Don’t—”

“Drink,” the figure instructs again, voice almost… soft, and encouraging, and kind.

Peter feels something in him settle into a sense of calm. He raises the vial, brings it to his lips and tips his head back, the dark blue liquid spilling into his mouth and down his throat with ease. There’s not a taste to it—or, at least, not one he can register—and, within moments, it’s done. Whatever he was given is in his system, and, as he drops the vial to the concrete, he sees what he thinks is a glint of teeth as the figure smiles, and there’s a moment, only seconds, really, where Peter realizes that it’s a grin of victory.

Before he can process the dread forming in the pit of his stomach, the pain hits—sudden, agonizing, worse than anything that Peter has ever felt before.

He drops to the ground, and he doesn’t even hear the way that he screams.


	2. Chapter 2

The first time he wakes up, he doesn’t _really_ wake up. His eyes don’t open, he doesn’t wiggle or flex his fingers, doesn’t even become alert enough to register the pain still radiating from every cell in his body. All he does is see a little bit of light shining through his eyelids, and he hears fragments of sound.

“I don’t underst…”

“…shouldn’t be possible, but he… like someone reversed the effects… it’s—it’s baffling, really…”

“—on’t give a flying fuck what you have to say, I—let me go or I swear to fucking god I’m going to—why can’t I just _sit with him_ , for the love of fucking—”

The light fades to black and the voices drift away.

The second time he wakes up, it’s quiet. He barely parts his eyelids, which feel far more heavy than they should, and scans the darkened room. It’s night time, he thinks—no other light, only the streaming moonlight through the cracks in the curtains. It’s too dark for him to see who it is that’s snoring in a chair by his bedside (and part of him recognizes that he’s in the Med Bay, but he’s too groggy, barely even conscious, to really register that fact, or react to it entirely), but he can see the silhouette in the shadows, and knowing that someone is there is more comforting than he thought it would be.

It’s quiet, he notices—more quiet than New York should be, even at night.

He chalks it up to the room being soundproofed, something that’s done every once in a while when they think he might wake up with a sensory overload, and he lets himself fall back asleep.

The third time, all he feels is white, burning hot agony.

It reminds him of the spider bite—of the way he had felt like fire was licking through his veins, like molten lava was curdling in the pit of his stomach and boiling his blood under his skin. He doesn’t even think to open his eyes, to see why he’s in pain—doesn’t remember waking up the first two times, not in this moment, and can’t form a coherent thought to question what the hell is going on.

Instead, all he can do is scream.

It tears out of his throat like someone’s physically pulling it out of him, rips at his vocal chords until it hurts, until it burns, and he wants to stop but he can’t because it isn’t under his control. His back arches, his muscles scream at him, feeling like they’re being liquified and solidified, over and over and over again. Someone grabs him by the shoulders, pushes him down, but he doesn’t even register it, can’t register anything other than the pain and the rough sob that forces itself past his lips and makes his already sore throat hurt even worse. The hands at his shoulders keep him down against what he’ll later be able to identify as the Med Bay bed that he’s in, and then one of those hands moves up to his hair, starts carding through the curls matted to his forehead from sweat, and it would be nice if Peter wasn’t so preoccupied with trying to suck in deep, aching breaths between the waves of agony and the screaming sobs that keep involuntarily spilling from the tip of his tongue.

“I know, kid,” a voice says—it’s faint and garbled and muffled in Peter’s mind, but he hears the words nevertheless, and his breath hitches as he latches onto them in an attempt to distract himself. He must turn his head towards the source of the sound, must react, somehow, because the hand in his hair becomes more insistent and the voice comes back louder, more clear, and whoever it is tells him, “I know it hurts, and I’m so sorry, buddy, but you’re going to be just fine, alright? This is the worst of it. I swear, once you get through this, it’ll only get better, alright? You’ll be feeling norm— _fuck_ —you’ll feel better, okay? Just keep being the toughest kid I’ve ever met, you hear me? I’ll be here the whole time, Pete. I promise you.”

It doesn’t make him feel better, per se, but breathing is slightly easier by the time that Peter passes out from the pain. He doesn’t dream of anything, but there’s a sense of peace while he rests.

Even after Peter goes limp with unconsciousness, Tony continues to run his hands through the kids hair, hoping it still provides comfort and keeps away any of the nightmares that tend to plague him on a nightly basis. He feels heavy and haggard and exhausted beyond belief—the past five hours have managed to feel like a decade, in complete honesty—but he doesn’t move from where he’s poised on the edge of the mattress, no matter how much his back complains. His pain is nothing compared to Pete’s, anyway.

Bruce finds him like that a few minutes later, his hair askew and glasses perched crooked on the slope of his nose, clothes crinkled from where he fell asleep in his lab. “I’m sorry,” is the first thing he says. “I can’t believe I—I didn’t realize how tired I was, and Friday only just now managed to wake me up. She said you handled it, but he was—how bad was it? Was he in as much pain as we thought he’d be?”

Tony scrubs a hand over his features and finally rises, falling into the cushioned love seat that’s pressed up to the side of Peter’s bed. “Bad,” he croaks, eyes closing and features becoming pinched as he tries not to think of the blood curdling screams that had been filling the room less than twenty minutes ago. “God, Bruce, I… I hate seeing him like this. I really do.” Letting out a slow sigh, he sits up straight and tells himself to get it together, offering Bruce a tense smile to show that he isn’t upset about him falling asleep, knowing that the guy will feel genuinely bad about that if he doesn’t get reassurance. “Find anything?”

“Uh…” Bruce blinks heavily, takes off his glasses to rub at his eyes before putting them back on properly, no longer sitting crooked, and then runs a hand through his hair with a long exhale. “Yeah, actually, but I’m not really sure what to do about it.” Walking over to the tablet placed on one of the various rolling tables in the room, he picks it up and turns it on, swiping through a few files before accessing whatever it was he had been working on in the lab. He hands it over to Tony and asks, “What does that look like?”

Frowning, Tony takes a look at the image displayed on screen. “It’s Peter’s DNA,” he says, confused. It sounds odd, but he could recognize the kids DNA instantly, after studying it so closely with Bruce a few months after he came back to Earth with Thor and Loki in tow, when they had been trying to figure out all the questions that Tony had about Pete’s abilities but wasn’t able to figure out on his own. “Why?”

“It’s Peter’s _current_ DNA,” Bruce tells him. “His abilities are still there, Tony. But it’s—I’ve never seen this before, which is something I never thought I’d say so many times in my life, but I’m saying it again. It’s like something is blocking them entirely, and I can’t find a trace of anything in his system. Whatever that guy gave him, it’s invisible and it’s strong. I think I’m in over my head here, honestly—”

Tony looks up sharply, eyes going wide. “What? No, Bruce, you—you’re the best person to have here.”

Bruce looks at Tony disbelievingly. “Do you realize what’s happening here? Something undetectable is suppressing Peter’s abilities, and I have absolutely no clue where to go from here. We need help, Tony.”

Though he doesn’t want to admit it, Tony knows that Bruce is right. It isn’t that they aren’t capable, but this is unfamiliar territory, and they need someone more qualified for—whatever the fuck this is, to take a look and give them a hand, but who the fuck would know what to do about this?

Before Tony can dwell on that thought for too long, the door is pushed open forcefully, and Harley comes stumbling in, his hair a mess and his eyes bleary. It’s clear that he only just woke up—Tony glances at the time and has to suppress a heavy sigh when he realizes it’s nearing nine in the morning, now, almost six hours since he got that alert from Karen about Peter being on that roof with that weird red eyed guy—but despite stumbling from grogginess, his voice is on high alert as he asks, “What—What’s going on?”

“Good morning to you, too,” Tony murmurs, slouching back in his seat and looking back to Peter, whose features are creased with pain even in unconsciousness. Harley comes to a stop at the foot of the bed, rubs at his eyes tiredly before focusing his eyes on Peter, scanning over him repeatedly with worry written clearly on his face. Knowing that Harley will only ask again if he doesn’t get a proper answer, Tony puffs out a breath and explains, “Pete was out late last night, and someone… gave him something, I guess.”

Harley glances at Tony, but can’t seem to keep his eyes off of Peter for more than a few seconds, because he’s already looking back when he questions, “What the hell do you mean, gave him something? And why didn’t—Friday usually wakes me up when he comes in. Why didn’t she wake me up?”

“I told her not to,” Tony says simply. “You already seemed like you were in a bad mood yesterday, and there wasn’t anything you could do to help, anyway. I decided to let you get your rest” Harley clearly isn’t happy about that, if the sharp glare he sends towards Tony before settling into the chair on the other side of Peter’s bed is anything to go by, but he doesn’t say anything, waiting instead for Tony to answer his first question. After a moment of pause, he does. “And I mean that someone gave him something, but… I don’t know, honestly. Peter took it willingly, and until he wakes up, we won’t know why.”

“He took it—what?” Harley looks baffled. “I’m confused. Who gave it to him? What was it?”

Tony shakes his head, clamping down on the vague frustration that tries to rise in his chest, knowing that Harley is only worried and that he doesn’t deserve to have Tony’s lack of sleep taken out on him. “I don’t know who it was,” he says. “And I don’t know what it was, either. All I know is that it was a creepy person with red eyes, whatever they gave Peter was a dark blue color, and he was talking to Peter about him not wanting to be Spider-Man anymore. But it was like he had Peter in a trance, or something—”

“Um.” Bruce cuts in, something alarmed in his tone. “Harley? You alright, there?”

Looking over, Tony understands why Bruce sounds alarmed—Harley has gone deathly pale and is visibly shaking, looking down at his lap with wide, panicked eyes. “Jesus—” Tony jumps to his feet, rounds the bed and kneels next to Harley’s chair, focus temporarily pulled away from Peter in order to take care of the other teenager that he’s coincidentally ended up feeling responsible for and caring a lot about. “Harley, kid, you gotta—you gotta look at me, alright? Look at me and tell me what’s going on.”

Shockingly, Harley’s features scrunch up, just a bit. “I… I didn’t think he’d—I didn’t think—”

Tony is equal parts concerned and confused beyond belief. “What are you talking about, kid?”

Shaking his head, Harley chances a glance up at Tony, before squeezing his eyes shut and swallowing roughly. “We had a—a talk, I guess, ‘cause… I was upset with him—I—I _am_ upset with him, I guess, about missing our date for the millionth time in a row, and I was avoiding him yesterday because I was so upset, and he caught up with me after school and I told him—I— _fuck,_ Tony, I told him that Spider-Man was starting to be too much, and that I would think about… about if I wanted to break up or not.”

For a moment, Tony’s tired brain almost lets himself lean back in anger, before reminding himself that Harley’s a _kid_ —just turned seventeen over the summer, about a month before Peter did, and while these are two of the smartest and mature teenagers that Tony’s ever heard of, let alone met, they are still just teenagers. They can be dumb and say the wrong thing, just like Tony does, and they can not realize how their words can impact one another when they’re upset. However, knowing that doesn’t stop Tony from clenching his jaw, taking a deep breath, and having to remind himself to not allow the stress of the past (almost) six hours come out now, knowing that Harley doesn’t deserve to be lashed out at.

Besides, if the way he’s trembling like a leaf in the breeze is anything to go by, he already feels awful.

“Alright,” Tony murmurs, once he’s managed to settle any irrational frustration that had been bubbling in the pit of his gut. “Harley, bud—I can see you blaming yourself, and you shouldn’t be. I really mean it when I saw this guy had Pete in some kind of trance. He wasn’t looking away from the guy, and his voice was all… slurred, kind of, like he was drunk. Whatever this was, it isn’t on you.”

It’s clear that Harley doesn’t buy into it, but the reassurance seems to be enough to clear his head a little bit, some color returning to his cheeks as he nods. “What did Karen get on the guy?” he asks.

“Not much,” Tony tells him, frown deepening as he leans back on his haunches, staying close in case Harley needs the comfort. “I tried looking back at her feed, but the entire hour has been erased. This guy knew what he was doing, and he did it damn well. But we’ll figure it out, alright? We’ll fix it.”

“Fix it?” Harley looks up, brows pinched and clearly confused. “What do you mean? Fix what?”

Tony parts his lips, but his tongue won’t cooperate with him. Instead, he looks to Bruce, eyes pleading with the guy to explain what they’ve figured out so far, not wanting to have to say it all when he’s still struggling to process what it means and how Peter will react to it. Bruce shifts his weight from foot to foot, clearly debating if he feels comfortable with it or not, before letting out a sigh and nodding.

When Bruce is done explaining, Harley looks at Peter sadly. “Fuck,” is all he has to say.

Peter doesn’t remember waking up a fourth time, or a fifth time, or a sixth time—though all three times were, apparently, just as awful as the third had been. It isn’t until the seventh time that he wakes up that he manages to stay awake, blinking up at the ceiling in bleary confusion before letting his head loll to the side, looking to the left of the bed. Tony is sitting in his designated ‘Peter got hurt and this is my spot’ love seat, chin to his chest and snoring lightly, looking exhausted beyond belief. Peter doesn’t want to wake him up, be he’s been lectured plenty of times about how the one in the hospital bed is the one who needs the rest, and when the one in the hospital wakes up, everyone else should, too.

Still, he hesitates for a moment, before clearing his throat and croaking out, “Mister Stark?”

Oh, speaking hurts—like stabs of pain running along his throat.

He grimaces, but tries again, only louder this time. “Mister Stark?” he asks. “Mister Stark, ‘m ‘wake.”

Tony jolts, head shooting up and eyes rapidly blinking, like he’s trying to clear spots from his eyes or make them focus on the world around him, before settling his gaze on Peter and clambering to his feet. “Pete,” he breathes, features alight with worry as he scans over Peter’s face. “Hey, how do you feel?”

“Uh…” Peter winces at the way his throat stings. “Talkin’ kinda hurts, but—okay, I think.” He looks down at himself, trying to assess the damage, and blinks when he doesn’t see any bandages or blood stains or casts. Either he’s been asleep for a while, or whatever’s wrong is internal. “Wha’ happened?”

“I was hoping that you could tell me, bug,” Tony replies, brows pinched together, part of him wanting to demand the whole story in the hopes that it’ll give some insight on how to proceed from here, while the rest of him wants to coo and coddle and have Peter rest a little longer. These damn kids have made him soft, he knows, and having Harley living with him and Rhodey at the same time that he’s befriended one May Parker, he’s learned and developed the parental type of approach to said damn kids.

He wouldn’t trade it for the world, but still.

“Karen got compromised, somehow,” he tells Peter. When Peter perks up, looking concerned, no doubt paranoid ever since Tony’s informed him about how he lost Jarvis (and that losing Jarvis had been possible, and losing Karen is possible, too), Tony is quick to assure, “Not detrimentally, or anything. She’s fine, all of her coding is in tact and she’ll be happy to see you when you’re all fixed up. What I mean is that her feed from your patrol got messed up, and the hour leading up to me coming to get you has been erased. All I know about what happened is what I saw when I got there.” He brushes some of the short ringlets away from Peter’s forehead, being sure to remain gentle. “What do you remember, bug?”

Peter blinks harshly, hoping it’ll help him feel more focused, and wracks his brain, bringing up what he remembers before the few times he can recall waking up. When it all feels fuzzy and unclear, looking back even further to try and recount the entire day—waking up to his alarm, getting ready for school, seeing the breakfast that May left on the counter for him—

May was pissed at him. He remembers that, now, but… why?

Brows bunching together, Peter tries to keep going over the events of the day in his head, thinks about how he got to school on time, talked with Ned and MJ for a bit—remembers wondering if Harley was running late or slept in or something, because he would usually join them before class. He had seen after Flash got dropped off by Harry, and asking if Flash knew where Harley was, and Flash—his friend, now, yes, but still getting used to it—had responded with, “Fuck if I know, Parker, he’s _your_ boyfriend.”

Remembers Harley avoiding him, and his hip hurting (healing slow, or still sore, or having healed wrong… he doesn’t know, really; just remembers that it still hurt), and being anxious trying to figure out why Harley was so obviously upset with him.

Their talk, about Spider-Man being too much, and Harley wanting to think about breaking up.

The ice cream shop. He remembers that, now—sitting across from Harry and Flash, talking through the situation with Harley and being so grateful to have them as friends, even if Flash grumbles a lot and is still a bit harsh in the tone, still instinctively defensive after the years that they didn’t get along, and he remembers leaving in a hurry, but he can’t for the life of him figure out why.

Harry had been talking to him… said something about wishing he had half the heart that Peter does.

Said that he was jealous. That’s why Peter left, because of that work—jealous.

He remembers patrolling, losing track of time because of it being a Friday, not thinking much of it because May has never been upset with him losing track of time before—but then it was different, because she called, she demanded he come home, yelled and screamed and ranted when he finally did. Grounded him, too—said that she didn’t know how long for, but that he was grounded nonetheless. That meant no hanging out with his friends, no going out until it was to the Tower for lab days, and absolutely, under no circumstances, no Spider-Man.

It’s rare for him to be grounded—May just isn’t that kind of parent, usually. Only time he’s ever been grounded before was during all the stuff with the Vulture and everything, and even then it was only because she didn’t know about Spider-Man and thought he was just sneaking out and slacking off in school, and she didn’t know what else to do. This time was different, though. She was different.

He’s never seen her act like that before, and she’s never treated him the way she did last night.

Going on patrol afterward had been instinct, even though he knew he had just been told not to, and he knew she would see that he had been out when pictures and shit made it online, but he had needed to get out of the apartment because his day had been awful and he felt like shit and he needed a distraction.

And that’s when he really remembers.

The cloaked figure, the red flashes of light, and the vial of blue liquid.

“Oh,” Peter says, as it all clicks together in his head, eyes fluttering shut and features scrunching up.

“Oh?” Tony skims his fingers through Peter’s hair, calming but not calming enough to ease Peter’s racing heart. It’s like he can tell that Peter just remembered it all, because he’s soft spoken when he asks, “What happened, kid? No one else is in here, just me, and I won’t tell anyone unless you allow me to, okay?”

Peter nods, a bit curt and stiff, but that makes him relax, just slightly. Tony’s developed a lot since they met back when he was fourteen-almost-fifteen. He’s patient and he’s genuine and he knows how to respect boundaries better than most people do, and he never breaks a promise when he makes it. If Peter asks him not to tell someone else something, he won’t, even if he doesn’t agree with keeping it a secret.

If Tony says it can stay between them, then Peter knows it will, if that’s what he wants.

“It was a bad day,” he starts with, because it had been, and he hasn’t been able to vent that to anyone yet, and now that he remembers it all, it’s even more prominent when it presses down on his chest and makes him feel overwhelmed and heavy. “It was—Mister Stark, it was a _really_ bad day. Harley…”

Tony nods, features sympathetic. “I know about Harley, bug. He told me about what happened.”

Peter sinks his teeth into his lower lip, lets out a long, weighted breath. “Yeah,” he croaks. “That sucked, and it’s only my fault, which makes it suck even more. And then Harry and Flash took me to get ice cream so that we could talk about it, and they kept saying it isn’t my fault and that Harley should have said things differently and—and then Harry said he was jealous of me and it felt like he punched me in the face, ‘cause—‘cause if anyone really knows what my life is, it’s him, you know? He’s known me since we were toddlers, since before my parents died, and he—I don’t know. It hurt, I guess, so I went on patrol to clear my head, and it was Friday, so I didn’t keep track of the time since I can stay out later on Friday’s, and I guess I was out too long because May called me and told me I had to be home within ten minutes and—and that every minute I was late was a week that I’d be grounded, and I tried, Mister Stark, I swear I—I tried to get home that fast, but it took, like, twenty minutes just to finish taking down the guys I was already fighting when she called, and then there kept being people who needed help on the way home, and it took me—it took me, like, over fourty five minutes, and she was—she was so _mad,_ Mister Stark… I’ve never seen her mad like that before, and it was ‘cause of me, y’know? I made her that mad ‘cause I was out late and she said that I’m grounded until she decides I’m not anymore, and told me that I was only allowed to go to school, go to lab days, and go home, and that’s it. No—No Spidey, or Ned or Harry or MJ or—nothing else. Just home, school, lab. And then she told me to go to bed and she, like—she slammed the door, when she left my room, and it was so loud, and I… I just wanted to cry, honestly, but—but I didn’t. I went back on patrol because I needed to get out and get some air, and…”

Tony already looks like he’s trying to clamp down his anger, but when Peter eyes him nervously, Tony shakes his head and offers a smile and assures, “I’m not mad at you, bug. What happened next?”

Peter swallows the lump forming in his throat. “And,” he says, glancing down at his lap. “I was waiting, you know? For, like—for Karen to tell me about anything happening nearby, ‘cause it was a kind of quiet night, not much going on, and I was—I was sitting on that roof, above that pizza place we went to a few months ago? The one with the really good crust?” Tony nods, remembering what place Peter’s talking about—not realizing, until now, that that’s the roof that he’d been on, despite having flown out to the same roof after getting the alert from Karen. “Yeah, and—and while I was waiting, there was… like, a red glow, you know? Like—Karen said it looked like an explosion, because it was, like, a big flash of red light, really far away. And then there was another one, a few blocks closer, and then another, and then—and then there was that cloaked guy, and he was in the alleyway in front of me. He…” Peter trails off, shaking his head, the crease between his brows deepening. “He knew my name, Mister Stark. I don’t know how, but he knew my name, and he knew that I had a bad day, and I wanted to—I wanted to tell him he was wrong, even though he wasn’t, but it was like I couldn’t move, and I couldn’t lie. either. When he asked if he was right, I couldn’t stop myself from telling him the truth. And then he asked me what I wanted, and that, when I said the right thing, he’d give me what I needed to fix it.”

“And you said you didn’t want to be Spider-Man,” Tony supplies, knowing that much, at least. He frowns, confused, and shakes his head. “But that doesn’t make much sense. You love being Spidey, Pete. It’s part of you. It’s who you are. If he made it so you couldn’t lie… why is that what you said?”

Peter doesn’t respond for a few long, tense moments. When he does, it’s with a trembling lower lip that he’s trying hard to conceal, and his voice cracks as he says, “I… I love helping people, Mister Stark, and being Spider-Man lets me do that, but… after yesterday, I felt like being Spidey would make the only people I have left want to get rid of me, you know? It’s stupid, but I—I felt like it was my only choice.”

It breaks Tony’s heart to hear the way that Peter says this, his tone tinged with some kind of defeat. He wants to pull the kid into a hug, wants to offer all the comfort he can—and maybe he wants to chew a few people out for a little bit, too—but he waits, knowing that the comfort Peter needs will only increase once he knows. “Pete…” he starts, not wanting to say it but knowing that hearing it from anyone else will only make it that much worse right now. Peter glances up at him, already vulnerable and looking younger than he is (and it hurts, because Tony knows that Peter rarely is given the chance to act young, knows that he’s had to grow up too fast and it’s so rare for him to end up like this, childishly needing comfort and willing to rely on one of the few adults he trusts for it). Tony wishes he could push it off until later, but if he did that and Peter found out that Tony chose not to tell him now, he’d just be upset.

Now is the only time that’s right, and it’s fucking awful.

“The drink,” Tony says, words slow and cautious. “The blue stuff, in the vial… we don’t know what it was. It doesn’t show up in your system, and Bruce hasn’t been able to find anything about it out yet, but…” Peter looks nervous, but he doesn’t look away. Tony sighs. “But it’s—it’s suppressing your abilities, Pete. And until we can figure out what it is and how to reverse it, you can’t get them back.”

Peter stares at him, wide eyed and unblinking, for so long that Tony is staring to wonder if he heard what he said at all. Just as he’s about to ask if he’s alright, Peter softly asks, “So, I’m not Spidey anymore?”

“You’ll always be Spidey,” Tony tells him. “Powers or no powers—that’s all you, bud. But, until we fix it… you can’t go out in the suit, no. For right now, you’re just like you were before the bite happened.”

Slowly, Peter nods, eyes vacant, features blank. “Oh,” he breathes. “I’m just… I’m just me, then.”

And that’s when he starts to weep.

It isn’t until Peter’s cried himself back to sleep that Tony lets himself process.

He doesn’t want to place blame—really, he doesn’t, because it isn’t May’s fault, or Harley’s fault, or Harry’s fault, and he’d never try to claim that it is—but he can’t help the fact that he’s a bit pissed off right now. Peter isn’t weak, obviously, and Tony won’t imply that he is, but the kids brain is ruthless. It’s cruel and persistent and makes him believe all these things that aren’t at all true, and Tony knows that this is something they know about. Tony knows about it, May knows about it, and Peter’s friends know, too.

They doesn’t have to be careful, necessarily, or walk on egg shells around him—but they can’t say things in certain ways because Peter will take those words and turn them into weapons against itself. Tony knows not to say what were you thinking when Peter gets careless about his own well being during a fight—instead, he’ll make sure that Peter knows he’s proud of him and how well he did, and then he’ll remind him that part of being so young while having a side job like this means he need to look out for himself, too, and they’ll talk it through from there, and Peter will know that Tony isn’t mad at him and he’ll listen and he’ll nod and he’ll try to work on it, and next time, he’ll do a little better.

It’s just how Peter is. He’s not fragile or anything like that, and he’s happy to be told when he’s in the wrong because he wants nothing more than to improve and be better—but if, in the process of being informed that he was in the wrong, or that he has something to improve it, it’s too harsh, or if it’s cruel, then the kid won’t hear the real meaning behind the words. All he’ll hear is that someone he cares about is mad at him, and it’s his fault, and he needs to be better because he isn’t good enough.

Survivors guilt, abandonment issues, the traumas of loss—they do weird things to a person. Tony would know, because they’ve done weird things to him, too.

For Peter, they make him blame himself, make him hate himself, for things that aren’t even his fault. They convince him that the people he has left are going to leave him, too—either because he won’t be good enough to save them, or because he won’t be good enough for them to keep around.

Tony brushes away the lingering tears shining on Peter’s cheek, gazing down at the kids sleep soft features with something painful twisting in his chest.

He won’t break his promise—never, not when it comes to Peter.

But when Peter wakes up, Tony plans to ask if he can have a chat with everyone else about what Peter told him. Because Tony doesn’t _blame_ them, no—but he has a whole fucking lot that he wants to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I PROMISE IM NOT TRYING TO VILLAINIZE PEOPLE!! no one is the bad guy!! you will see i promise no one here is a bad guy

**Author's Note:**

> hey my tumblr is also thompsborn if anyone wants to yell at me or start a revolution or fall in love or smth


End file.
